Mary H. Welch, '71, and Judy Koblintz Madnick, '61, have nominated Geoff Williams as the newest member of the Milne Alumni Hall of Fame. Geoff has provided invaluable support to Milne alumni with respect to our alma mater's history.

Geoff has been University Archivist at the University at Albany, SUNY, since 1987. He earned his B.A. from Colby College in 1966, an M.A. in European History in 1968, and an M.L.S. in 1985, both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since 1996 he has served as chair or co-chair of the New York State Historical Records Advisory Board and since 2004 has held leadership positions in the New York State Local Government Records Advisory Council. Both organizations are advisory to the New York State Archives. He has been very active in the New York Archives Conference, chairing that organization five time since the mid-'90s.

Since coming to the University, Geoff has made it his mission to uncover and broadcast the history of the university. He was actively involved in the research for Kendall Birr's 1994 history of the University, and he has taken an active interest in researching and bringing together a record of the Milne School. He has created a PowerPoint presentation of Milne's history and has guided tours of the Milne School for alumni reunions since 2005. For the last five years he has been writing a column, "Ask Geoff," for UAlbany Magazine on the history of the University.

His most recent collaboration with Milne Alumni was to push for the photographing of the Milne 200 murals and friezes, both funded by Milne student contributions in the late 1920s and 1930s. Then the Milne Class of 1961 provided funds to photograph the murals and friezes at high resolution. The murals and friezes can be seen at http://luna.albany.edu/luna/servlet/s/0b23a3. All of the murals and friezes will be displayed, 25 images, and you can blow up each individual image by clicking on it.

Geoff is currently working on a project to organize and put online all of the Milne School yearbooks and newspapers. This is the digitization project for which alumni are donating funds. See http://www.albany.edu/~milne/Project.shtml for further information regarding this exciting project.

Without Geoff's assistance, we would not have the master list of Milne Alumni that is available at http://www.albany.edu/~milne/Directories.shtml. He provided graduation lists, old yearbooks, and other documents so that the alphabetical and class-year directories could be developed.

We thank Geoff for all he has done to support Milne School Alumni. His bio is included on the Hall of Fame webpage here.

CLASS OF 1973 40TH REUNION

The Milne Class of 1973 will be holding its 40th reunion sometime in August 2013. For further information, please contact Peter Bulger.

SAD NEWS

Please note that I
rely upon the Albany Times Union and input from other
alumni for this information, so if you become aware of someone
who has passed away, please let me know. If a name is underlined,
it represents a link to the obituary. Many obituaries are
available free for a limited time only.